Page 35 of Requiem & Reverie

“You, as well.” An air of disappointment clings to his voice, but it’s nothing compared to the disappointment I’m going feel if I don’t find this bastard soon.

Two hundred employees. Who the fuck would’ve thought it’d take a couple hundred people to run this place? They’re gardens, for chrissakes. No wonder they’re asking for donations. Probably can’t afford the bodies.

Carl could be working in any capacity for the place. Certainly smart and cunning enough to act as a Director, while also perfectly content mopping the floors as a janitor, if it means staying low-key.

I pass the receptionist again, who hasn’t stopped smiling since I walked into the place. Woman must go home every night with a stiff jaw.

It takes a good ten minutes, walking through the Christmas-themed gardens that the other patrons practically swoon over, before I reach the Nature Center. The temperature changes, the moment I pass through two glass doors into a small, greenhouse-looking building. Thick humidity leaves a faint layer of sweat, as a few butterflies flit around my head like I won’t reach out and crush one. While everyone’s eyes are on them, I’m studying faces of employees and patrons.

Nothing.

After twenty minutes in the place, I’m about ready to call it quits for the day, but then I step through a new set of doors inside a different building. This one darker. Quieter. Oddly peaceful. It soon becomes clear as to why.

Encased behind glass are various nature scenes, speckled with animals.

Not live animals.

Dull, wide eyes, staring off at nothing, when I peer in at them, tell me they’ve been taxidermized. Preserved.

Ding ding ding.

See, the police have it all wrong in their speculations of the killer. The precision of his work, scrupulously removing the eyeballs from beneath the eyelids with such care, so that one would never know it was missing, if not for the sand. They hypothesized that he’s a surgeon, or mortician.

Not quite, unless he suddenly got ambitious over the years.

A fifteen-dollar correspondence course taught him how to cut, skin, and prepare specimens with such meticulous care, that he probably could’ve performed surgery after as many animals as he mutilated around the property.

I turn to one of the educators standing off to the side, and before I even get a word out, she’s smiling, just like the receptionist.

“Do you have a question?”

“Yes. Do you import these specimens?”

“We receive them from a number of locations, and process them here at the Nature Center.”

Eyes narrowed, I try to play it dumb. “Process. You stuff them here, right?”

“Taxidermy, yes. In order to preserve the species for both study and cataloguing.”

“And where might this processing department be?”

“In the basement of the building, which I’m afraid is only accessible by authorized personnel.”

Arms crossed, I scratch at my chin, laying the charm on thick. “Any chance I could get a tour down there?”

“We have educational workshops. The schedule is available at the front desk, if you’re interested.” Her responses are as trained as the blank, cordial smile plastered to her face.

“I’m here as a potential donor. Byron gave me the okay to tour the facility.”

Her brows wing up. “Oh. Typically, Byron accompanies the donors.”

“I didn’t arrange a meeting with him. Was sort of a walk-in proposal.”

“I see. Well, I’m happy to escort you down there, if you’d like to see it.”

“I would.”

She signals to another girl standing at the opposite side of the room, who gives a nod—must be the universal sign for a piss break, or something—and leads me down the adjacent hallway, through a set of doors, and to an elevator.